The Trail Ahead

Though Long John was radio-silent this last week, a lot of things have been going on behind the scenes. Though most of it is still nebulous and undetermined, some of it can be shared.

Firstly, I’m proud to announce that Long John is offering its first piece of merchandise, in a sense. Titled, Long John: Preview Edition, these are the small books I printed up for this year’s Crocker-Con back in September. Before you get too excited, they contain the first ten pages of the comic as well as a reprint of the blog post, “Behind Every Line and Between Every Panel.” Considering the decision to go to Crocker-Con was kind of last minute, these books were assembled and printed in a bit of a hasty manner. Since they were printed by RA Comics Direct, their physical quality isn’t in question––they’re gorgeous books––but there are some, as I’m calling it, “custom” typos to be found in the book, but they seem to be minor enough to be unnoticeable.

For $5, you get a copy of the book as well and a Long John sketch included with a bag and board so you can keep it crisp and clean for posterity. Just to let you know, supply is severely limited, and no more copies or versions of this book will be printed. Get your hands on one as quickly as possible! It’s being sold through Etsy at the moment because it seemed to be the most user-friendly (for both seller and buyers) and trust-worthy avenue for what I need.

Secondly, Josh Tobey’s Hellrider Jackie side-story––titled “Saving the Bones“––will debut not this week, but next week. The pages are looking amazing and I can’t wait for you to see them. Below is a little teaser of the kind of stuff you’ll be seeing in the coming weeks.

Thirdly, there will be a weekly blog post to keep you coming to the site. The topics will vary, but they’ll have some sort of relevance to the ideas or events in the upcoming, currently untitled, Chapter 2 (even if those connections are tenuous). I’m going to be using the site more as a place to focus all of my creative efforts, so blog posts that would normally be published at my blog, “Boasts of Bethel,” will be published at Long John instead (though I’ll tag them as Boasts of Bethel, to keep that tradition going). I would like the site to be a place where you not only learn about Long John and its influences and the theory/ideas behind it, but a place to keep you up to date with what’s going on in my head––what interests me at the moment––and will act as a nice intersection between Long John and my geeky/nerdy discussion podcast, For All Intents and Purposes.

Fourthly, the as-of-yet-untitled Chapter two of Long John’s story will be back in January, but the date is not yet set. I’ll let you know about that as soon as possible, however.

This is going to be an exciting few months! I’m incredibly excited to bring you new content and some surprises along the way.